


Bar Fight

by Hoodoo



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Alcohol, Bar Room Brawl, Blood, Enemies to Friends, Explicit Language, Fighting Dirty, Gen, Injury, Insults in Spanish, Shakespeare Quotations, spitting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 19:47:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15613713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoodoo/pseuds/Hoodoo
Summary: There's not enough booze to go around, and that's a good enough reason for two Ricks to throw down.





	Bar Fight

This place sucked. He wouldn’t even be here except his CO expressly forbid off-Citadel visitations for the immediate future; everyone else in the team was upgrading cybernetics. So he was stuck here, in his civvies, wasting time and feeling bored out of his fucking mind.

There was no way he’d head to the high-class places where all the rich pRicks hung out. His usual dive bar wasn’t the same without his team to play pool with. He briefly considered breaking orders and slipping off to the Bar where he knew he could hook up with the bartender, but it seemed like too much work. So he’d wandered and ended up in a part of town that was new to him, filled with bogedas and brightly colored graffiti and palm trees lining the streets. 

The bar he’d chosen on a whim was nicer than he expected. A couple of Ricks looked him over as he entered, then went back to their conversations.

Eyepatch took a seat at the bar. 

“What do you want?” the Rick barkeep asked. Standard blunt question on the Citadel; no niceties like with other bartenders …

“Plutonian vodka. Neat.”

The barkeep turned and grabbed its bottle off the shelf behind him, set a shot glass on the bar, and expertly poured a full glass without spilling over. Eyepatch gave him a mock salute with one finger to his forehead and downed the alcohol. 

“This is almost empty,” the barkeep announced, peering through the bottle in his hand.

“Then set me up another,” Eyepatch replied, dropping his glass back to the bar. 

As the slightly opalescent liquid filled the glass again, another Rick slapped the far end of the bar.

“Rick! Gimme a shot of plutonian vodka!”

The barkeep finished his pour-–he was a professional–-and held up the empty bottle. 

“That’s the last.”

The new Rick’s face immediately went dark. “What did you just say to me?”

“Th-that’s the last of this bottle, Miami.”

In movements that seemed to quick and sharp for a place full of drunks, the new Rick was up close and personal in Eyepatch’s space, scowling at the barkeep. Eyepatch shifted so he could get a better look at this asshole. 

Typical Rick hair. Pastel jacket. Linen trousers. Thin gold chain around his neck, and a heavy gold ring on one finger. Reflective sunglasses even in this dim place. A toothpick hanging from the side of his mouth. 

Eyepatch wrote him off as standard Rick garbage. 

The barkeep stepped back far enough to be out of the man’s reach, then slipped through a door behind the bar. He’d apparently dealt with this sort of thing before. 

Taking his glass in hand again, Eyepatch lifted it. 

“Hey-hey-hey–I’ll give you a hundred for that shot,” the new Rick–-Miami?–-said, nudging him with an elbow. 

Eyepatch let that touch slide. “Fuck off.”

Miami nudged him again. “Two hundred. Five.”

Eyepatch flicked his gaze to the other man. “I don’t want your fucking money.”

Miami scowled again, deeper. “Come on. Five hundred will at least get you a tattoo where your eye should be, so you don’t have to wear that fucking patch. I mean, it won’t-it won’t look good, but I can’t imagine that’s something you’ve ever thought about before.”

Eyepatch turned to face this asshole, held his gaze, and in slow deliberation threw back the shot of alcohol. Then he turned away again, slamming the glass back on the bar, dismissing the man next to him. 

“Fucker-–” Miami spit, and that nudge became a grip on his upper arm.

Eyepatch spun on his stool, intent on teaching this uppity, entitled Rick a goddamn lesson by means of his fist–-he was caught blindsided, literally, as Miami landed the first punch to the side of his head, near his ear on his right side, knocking him off-balance and throwing him off the stool.

He landed, his head ringing, in an ungraceful heap on the floor. His shot glass had come with him, shattering into glittering shards as it hit as hard as he did.

“Puto pendejo!” Miami muttered in his direction, then spit on him.

One side of Eyepatch’s mouth lifted in a quick grin. He steadied himself with his palms on the floor, looking for all the world like a man who was going to stay down due to the heavy sucker punch he’d just taken, then in an explosion he swept Miami’s feet out from under him. Miami, caught off guard, tried to grab the bar for support and failed.

He dropped to the floor too, skittering other stools away in his wake. 

He landed hard but relatively unscathed. He scrambled to his feet quickly, but so did Eyepatch. 

There was no more exchange of words or hesitation. Both men rushed each other, swinging. 

Miami ducked under the first punch and grappled him, shoving Eyepatch with a grunt backwards into the bar. He used his weight to drive him into the unyielding wooden edge; even through it was rounded heavy direct contact with anyone’s spine was going to hurt like a bitch. The force of the move actually bent Eyepatch over, and his breath was forced out with a groan. 

Eyepatch, though, took the opportunity to rabbit punch Miami one, twice, in the back of the head. Miami’s grip loosened and Eyepatch side-stepped out of the grip.

As he did, he brought his other fist upward and caught the left side of Miami’s jaw with an undercut. 

Miami’s jaw snapped shut and his toothpick splintered in two. He spit the remainder of it back at Eyepatch, who continued to stay close to land another punch.

Miami took a body blow. Eyepatch watched the other man’s right hand drop, opening an opportunity to punch that unguarded side of his face, so Eyepatch took it, giving a sharp left jab that snapped the other man’s head back. His sunglasses flew and clattered somewhere. When Miami head rocked forward again, he’d bitten through his lip and blood dribbled down his chin to his silk shirt, staining it. 

He hawked up and spit _again,_ this time spraying blood in the other man’s face. Eyepatch flinched slightly, and that was enough time for Miami to bring what Eyepatch thought was his useless right hand up.

Something flashed and only as it made contact with his face, bringing explosions of pain that rocketed through his nose, did Eyepatch realize Miami hadn’t dropped his hand for no good reason; he’d slipped on _brass knuckles–-_

He could no longer breathe through his nose. It was shattered. Blood flowed thickly over his lower face, and with it came chips of tooth. Eyepatch licked it automatically, but felt a little weak in the knees. 

Miami laughed and uttered another insult in Spanish, and took the moment of Eyepatch regaining his balance to grab at his head, intent on slamming the other man’s face into the bar and ending this fight right here, right now. 

But his fingers couldn’t get a grip on the other man’s hair–-Eyepatch laughed maniacally at the effort, _buzzcut by design, motherfucker!–-_ he could only hook his fingers into the strap of his eyepatch, which snapped at the groping. 

Miami was left with only a sweaty leather eyepatch as a prize.

Eyepatch reached up and behind, grabbed Miami’s head instead, and completed the action Miami had tried: slamming him face first into the bar.

Miami crumbled, but kept his feet by managing to hike his elbows onto the bar for support.

Both men were bloody and mangled. Like all true fights, it’d only been several minutes since it started. The other patrons of the bar had scattered like quail. Even the bartender was still no where to be seen.

Eyepatch wiped the gore on his face with his forearm, winced at the pain that wracked the center of his face and brought tears to his eye, and considered grabbing Miami and bodyslamming him through a table to end this thing decisively. 

Miami swayed to his feet, his own face grisly and bruising, drooling blood. His fancy shirt and jacket were splattered with red. He lifted his hands again, in fists, to the level of his face. The brass knuckles were coated with Eyepatch’s blood. 

Eyepatch licked his lower lip again and managed a lopsided grin. He raised his fists again, in response–

 _“Jesus fucking christ!”_ Rick the bartender shouted. “What in the actual fuck is wrong with you fucknuts?! I’ve got another fucking bottle of this goddamn alcohol right here!”

Both men startled and looked over at the enraged barkeep. He’d returned from the back room, and was holding the aforementioned bottle. 

Slowly, both Eyepatch and Miami lowered their fists. 

“Beating the shit out of each other over this shitty vodka?!” bartender Rick continued. “You’ve fucked my place over tonight-–you need to pay for damages and for cleaning this shit up, _and_ cover the cost of everyone else who left. Then get the fuck outta my bar!”

It suddenly seemed hilarious to Eyepatch. He chuckled, then laughed. That hurt his face, and he still couldn’t breathe, but he also couldn’t stop. He heard Miami bust into laughter too.

“Cocksuckers-–” Rick spit.

Miami placated him with a wad of cash, dropping it onto the bar. Eyepatch added his own–-it was a smaller amount-–and snagged the new bottle of vodka from the bartender’s hand.

“For the road,” he announced, popping the lid and taking a healthy mouthful as he started for the door. 

Miami took a second longer, then hurried after him. 

“Wait!” he called, out on the sidewalk. 

Eyepatch paused and turned. 

Miami held up his eyepatch. His sunglasses dangled from his other hand, the one that no longer wore the brass knuckles, but was still encrusted with blood.

Eyepatch smirked and plucked the shades out of the other man’s grip. He slipped them on, then offered the bottle to Miami. Miami accepted it as the olive branch it was, then winced as the alcohol burned the wound on his mouth.

“You want a job? I have openings on my staff for body guards.”

“You fucking need them. You barely held your own back there.”

“Says the man who’s face I think I made better by breaking his nose.”

Eyepatch snorted, dislodging a blood clot so fresh gore ran down his face, and accepted the bottle back for another swallow. Miami eyed him.

“Wanna go get some tail? My club’s the best in town. Got a doctor on staff too; he’ll fix that nose, no fuss. Your eye too.”

Eyepatch took a deeper swallow. “Nobody can fix my eye, thanks. But you own a club? Yeah, I got nothing else going on. Lay on, MacDuff.”

“And damn’d be him who first cries, ‘Hold! Enough!’ “ Miami completed.

He hooked his elbow around Eyepatch’s arm, and the two took off down the street, ragging each other and drinking heavily, like the best of friends. This was much better than Eyepatch expected tonight to turn out.

_fin!_


End file.
